Page 127 of Spying Under the Mistletoe
He slides the deadbolt to the side, opens the door, and pushes me inside. The door closes before I can retort.
Not that I had a brilliant retort sitting on the tip of my tongue…or anywhere else on my body.
I look up to check the windows in case they aren’t locked—which is highly doubtful.
Instead, I find something I wasn’t expecting.
35
Chloe
“Tabitha? What are you doing here?”
I stare at the woman tied to the wooden chair between the two twin beds. The two beds that Nikolai and I slept on when our families stayed in the house.
“Not much. Just hanging around. And let me guess—you’re not here to rescue me?”
I stalk the short distance to the window and attempt to push it open. It doesn’t budge.
“Damn it.” I examine the frame, searching for a way to unlock it. Nikolai and I never had an issue with it before. It was how we would sneak out of the house to watch the stars after our bedtime.
I quickly come to the depressing conclusion that we won’t be escaping through it. It’s like the window’s been glued shut.
“I take it that’s your way of saying we won’t be leaving that way,” Tabitha says.
I don’t answer. There’s something I need to find out first.
I stride the short distance to her chair and work at loosening the knots in the rope. “How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know. A few days.”
That gets me to stop what I’m doing, and my gaze flicks to her face. “How come this is the first I’m learning you’re missing?”
“Maybe because no one knows it. My kids are with my ex-husband for the week. I’d planned to do all my Christmas shopping and baking while they were gone, so I had no appointments for anyone to realize something was wrong when I didn’t show up for them.”
“But why are you here?” If Eric and his sidekick were hoping to lure me here with Tabitha, they picked the wrong person.
“Because I knew info they didn’t want you to find out.”
The knot I was working on finally gives up its battle, and I free her arm from the chair.
I start working on the other knot. “What’s that?”
“I should probably explain something first. I started dating Eric a few weeks ago. He seemed like a great guy at the time.”
I can see how she initially thought that. At first glance, he comes off as sweet and funny. Any sane, single woman would easily fall for his boyish charms.
“But then he became awfully interested in you,” she says. “He lives in the same building as you, which is how he knew who you were.”
“No, he doesn’t. His grandmother lives in my building. He was just visiting her there.” As the words fall from my lips, I realize how wrong I am. The odds of the grandmother of one of my grandfather’s enemies living in my building is pretty much zero.
“If that’s true, I have no idea where he hid her. I never saw her when I was in his apartment. And the place doesn’t look like an elderly woman lives there. There were no photos or anything else that you would associate with a woman who’s lived a lifetime.”
I remove the rope from Tabitha’s other wrist and drop it to the floor.
“At first, I was pissed at you because of what happened with my husband,” she continues. “I was sure the same thing was happening again, only this time with my new boyfriend. I must’ve had too much to drink one night and said some not-so-great stuff about you. He took that the wrong way and figured I was a vindictive bitch, which he thought worked in his favor.
“He confided in me, convinced me to help him out. But then I realized there was something seriously wrong with him, and I was planning to warn you. Oh, by the way, it’s never a good idea to let a man know about your intentions. Lesson learned.”
